Age of Consent

King of Pain

"I have stood here before inside the pouring rain
With the world turning circles running 'round my brain
I guess I'm always hoping that you'll end this reign
But it's my destiny to be the king of pain"

When we had arrived at Johnny's house, it was kind of awkward to say the least. He had been quieter than the day before, like his mind was heavy with something that he couldn't express. I tried to act as normally as possible and quickly set up our work station on his bed, Johnny fumbled through his records trying to find something to play. I looked around the room while I waited, I hadn't noticed the various pictures he had with what I assumed to be friends, family, and one that I recognized to be Ali. The picture of him and Ali was tucked into the mirror on his wardrobe, it was one of those ones that you got at photo booths, in the last frame they were kissing. He really must have still cared about her if he hadn't taken that down, I remember my brother had burned all the pictures of his girlfriend before Monica. When him and Kristy broke up I couldn't even get him out of his room,  he played Air Supply on repeat and chain smoked. I sat by the door worried that he was going to kill himself, I eventually coaxed him out to go fishing with me.

Ironically Johnny picked Air Supply as our study soundtrack, he must have noticed me looking at the picture because he quickly plucked it from its spot and stuffed it in the drawer. "I'm sorry." I said taken back by his actions, he shook his head. "Don't apologize, I just keep forgetting to take it down." He let out a deep sigh, and looked up at me. "Look about this morning, I didn't mean to scare you or embarrass you. I was just upset about something I saw." I nodding understandingly, I lived with two men who had explosive tempers I just was not prepared for it at school. "I understand." I replied simply before opening the textbook, we had a lot to cover since he had not been present the whole day. "Just forget that for now." Johnny said before pulling the book out of my lap and tossing it on the floor, "I'm not going to karate tonight, when I left I went straight to the dojo to blow off some steam." He sat down next to me on the bed, I felt somewhat exposed in my cutoffs which were beginning to look beyond distressed. "Your still on the clock." He added quickly, I didn't bother to tell him that I didn't have anything better to do. 

"Why does your bag smell like weed?" Johnny asked reaching back behind me, his body pressed against me in the process and I froze up. My brother had given it to me this morning, I had hid it before walking into the building and had picked it up on the way out. "Oh, I'm sorry I can put it outside if it's bothering you." I said pulling out the eighth, Johnny gave me a short laugh and shook his head. "That explains why your always so mellow." He said grabbing the bag from me and observing the buds through the plastic, "This looks real good." He commented, my brother would be happy to hear this. "We can smoke some if you want." I offered pulling rolling papers out of my bag, Johnny nodded and started to break some of it up on one of his text books. 

"This is a terrible joint." I said laughing as I disassembled it and rewrapped it tighter, I lit it and handed it back to him. "Well I'm not a professional like you." He said taking a deep inhale and coughing, he looked down at the joint impressed. "Where did you get this anyways?" He asked, I didn't want to say my brother. "I can get it for you." I answered simply, he nodded and took another hit before passing it back. "So why were you talking to Daniel LaRusso this morning?" He asked, I could hear the irritation in his voice when he said Daniel's name. "We're friends, I guess." I said kind of uncertain if Ali was going to prevent that from happening at this point. "Well it didn't look like 'friends' to me." He said, I turned and gave him a confused look. "What else would it be? We were just talking, if you haven't noticed I don't have a ton of friends." I stubbed out the roach in the ash tray, and looked back up at him, I could see the growing annoyance in his face.